Packaging
Chesapeake chooses BOBST MISTRAL after gluer face-off
Tuesday 19. August 2008 - Chesapeake Corporations Leicester pharmaceutical packaging plant has installed a new BOBST MISTRAL folder gluer after an extensive evaluation of the offerings from three suppliers. The new machine is to help the plant cope with increased sales, and with growing demand for more complex cartons.
Mark Wilson, Operations Director at Chesapeake Leicester said, “We started with no preconceptions, just the knowledge that our work mix had changed over the past couple of years and we no longer had enough capacity on our more complex machines. We took a structured approach and gave the top three suppliers in the folder-gluer market the opportunity to show us what they thought we needed in a gluer, how it would perform, and the support they could provide. We then compared what they were offering and BOBST came out on top”.
The Leicester site has always produced complex pharmaceutical packaging products in considerable numbers, but in recent years the demand for these has increased significantly. The new folder-gluer for the plant was to enable it to meet this demand with increased capacity and with more efficiency.
A team from Chesapeake provided each supplier with samples of the plants most difficult products, asked them to suggest their most suitable folder-gluer and to evaluate the theoretical makeready times and running speeds they could expect to achieve on the Chesapeake work. This was followed by a full production evaluation of each suppliers recommended machine on the suppliers sites, and by an assessment of additional efficiency features, after-sales support, warranties, and price.
Mr Wilson said, “The evaluation we carried out on the BOBST gluer at their HQ in Switzerland was very good, and at the end of the process the BOBST came out on top overall. Its a more rounded machine with some extra features like a squaring device that will help us maintain both performance and quality on difficult, small crashlock cartons”.
Chesapeake has its own Design Centre which helps customers create new designs, products, and applications. Mr Wilson said, “Because of the versatility of the MISTRAL, our Design Centre sees this as an opportunity to bring new designs to the market, ones that will, in particular, help our customers differentiate their products”.
Chesapeake, Leicester also took the same approach in choosing a gluing and quality assurance system for the MISTRAL. Mr Wilson said, “We chose a Nordson Logicomm gluing and verification system, which has features such as overhead monitoring that weve never before had access to on this site. It also integrates seamlessly into the BOBST CUBE system. We were particularly impressed with the integrated touch screen which provides access to all of the functions in one user friendly location, and saves our operators time on set-up. Our quality record here is excellent, as it needs to be in this market, and this sort of equipment keeps us ahead of the game”.
The Leicester plant is part of a jigsaw of global provision delivered by Chesapeakes network of sites, and the new MISTRAL represents just another part of the groups continued investment in plant and equipment.